Corporate governance - Vigil

If stakeholders judge companies based on meeting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals, it’s natural to tie executive compensation to those goals. After all, environmentally friendly companies may one day attract more and cheaper capital and achieve higher valuations.

Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services has urged shareholders of Tesla Inc to vote against electing its boss Elon Musks’s brother, Kimbal, and media executive James Murdoch to the electric carmaker’s board.

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Eric Rosengren will retire Thursday, about nine months early, citing health reasons, as the veteran policy maker was navigating a controversy over his trading in the financial markets.

One of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges said it would close all user accounts in mainland China by the end of the year, days after the country’s central bank declared all crypto-related transactions illegal.

Rolls-Royce has taken a big step forward in repairing its battered balance sheet after agreeing to sell its Spanish aircraft engine manufacturing business to a private equity-led consortium for €1.7bn.

Polestar, a premium Swedish electric vehicle company spun off from Volvo Cars and backed by actor Leonardo DiCaprio, has agreed to go public through a special purpose acquisition company at a $20bn valuation.

A Toronto venture-capital firm focused on backing Canadian startups led by women has surpassed the goal for its second fund after making a string of promising investments.

CFOs from more than 60 companies who are part of a UN task force committed to linking about half of their companies’ financing to ESG targets by 2025.

Engine No. 1’s Total Value Framework is a data-driven approach to investing that puts a tangible value on a company’s environmental, social and governance impacts and ties those impacts to long-term value creation.

Interest in environmental, social and governance (ESG) has never been greater, and yet, ESG ratings systems conflict with one another and remain uncorrelated from financial returns. The inability to tie data to actual outcomes has supported shareholders divesting rather than holding a company and engaging when a problem arises.

In this article, Deloitte and the Society for Corporate Governance report on a survey they conducted in July 2021 about companies’ approaches to publicly addressing controversial social and political issues.

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has acquired HomeEquity Bank, Canada’s largest provider of reverse mortgages.

Engine No. 1 sent shock waves across corporate America in May when the fledgling investment firm won a boardroom battle with Exxon Mobil Corp., securing three seats on the oil and gas giant’s board after purchasing only about $40 million of its stock. The shareholder vote was heralded as a major victory for so-called ESG investing, which focuses on improving corporate environmental, social, and governance metrics. Afterward, Engine No. 1 raised more money from investors, launched an exchange-traded fund with the ticker VOTE, and filed for a second ETF focused on climate issues.

Up to 90% of British fuel stations ran dry across major English cities on Monday after panic buying deepened a supply chain crisis triggered by a shortage of truckers that retailers are warning could batter the world’s fifth-largest economy.

The word collaboration is big these days in business. So is the term partners. Even in academia, where academics traditionally toiled in isolation, collaboration is prominent: A research paper with a solitary author is becoming a rarity; three or four writers sharing the burden is common.

With numerous family feuds in the GCC, many family-owned business groups have started taking corporate governance much more seriously today than ever before. Yes, they are still reluctant to let go of male dominance and power, going by the resistance to reforms for gender parity.

There are many silver linings though and some of the reputed groups have brought in external directors and CEOs to manage the affairs. Many family-owned companies have started inviting potential board successors to attend board meetings either as observers or invitees to assess their capabilities to work with the family business culture.

Oil prices climbed on Monday to the highest level in three years on mounting expectations the natural gas crisis will spill over into other commodities at the same time as the global economic recovery boosts demand.

For most people, coming into work is about more than picking up a pay slip. Not everyone aims to change the fate of humankind at the office. But even a sense that one’s employer is making a useful product helps escape the lure of the duvet in the morning. Bosses hype this up. It has become fashionable to claim that the pursuit of purpose in the service of “stakeholders” matters more than pleasing shareholders. The outcome of a takeover battle shows how removed from reality the rhetoric is.

Christopher Hohn, whose company owns CN shares worth about $4-billion, is trying to win support for his battle for the railway’s boardroom.

General Motors Co.  is cracking down on white-collar employees who haven’t complied with a corporate mandate to report their vaccination status, illustrating the hurdles companies face in trying to navigate the sensitive topic of workforce immunity.

While the rapid pace of economic expansion has been a welcome opportunity for certain businesses, the long-term robustness of the recovery could be challenged by uneven events in specific geographies, the unwinding of government support programs, the scarceness of labor, the rise of inflation or the resurgence of COVID-19 variants.

As organizations continue their strategy refresh discussions, the following five questions should be top of mind for board members and management teams to make sure that their strategy adequately focuses on the future while recognizing the past and present stakeholder concerns.

Boris Johnson has ordered a rapid fix to the UK’s acute shortage of lorry drivers which has unleashed widespread supply chain disruption, including at petrol stations.